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The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which cares for children who cross the border alone, said on Tuesday the policy of fingerprinting all adults living with the sponsors enacted in June had increased the time children were in government custody without turning up more red flags. The number of immigrant children in government-run shelters has ballooned to a record 14,700 as of Dec. 17, according to HHS. U.S. laws limit the time migrant juveniles can be detained, so those caught crossing the border without a parent or legal guardian are often released to adult sponsors in the United States.

The judges said the complaints of misconduct, including accusations that Kavanaugh made false, unduly partisan and disrespectful statements to senators, must be dismissed because he has been confirmed to the Supreme Court and the federal law governing judicial conduct applies only to lower court judges. Kavanaugh was a federal appeals court judge when President Donald Trump appointed him in July.

The measure would also ban certain types of ammunition and allow courts to ban gun ownership by people deemed to pose a significant threat of violence. "As gun violence escalates across the country, it would be unconscionable for me to stand by and do nothing," Councilman Corey O'Connor, one of the legislation's authors, said in a statement. O'Connor represents Squirrel Hill, the neighborhood where the massacre at the Tree of Life synagogue took place.

President Donald Trump's Republican Party typically supports gun ownership, and its members have fiercely fought off perceived threats to the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment guaranteeing Americans the right to bear arms. The Justice Department's regulation follows the lead of many states and retailers that imposed stricter limits on sales of guns and accessories after a deadly shooting in February at a Florida high school. Gun Owners of America said on Tuesday that it was going to court to fight the new rule and would seek an injunction.

A federal jury in Concord, New Hampshire, found Christopher Clough, 45, guilty of all charges he faced in a case that stemmed from a years-long investigation into the Arizona company's efforts to promote its opioid medication Subsys. Patrick Richard, Clough's lawyer, said he is evaluating his options, including an appeal. The verdict came a month before six former Insys executives and managers including John Kapoor, a onetime billionaire who was its founder and chairman, face trial on charges that they conspired to bribe medical practitioners to prescribe Subsys.

The detailed advisory listed various strategies that states, communities, health professionals and parents can apply to restrict the use of e-cigarettes. The devices, which are often thought of as safer alternative to cigarettes, are not harmless, the advisory noted. E-cigarettes have become increasingly popular among teens because they come in "easy to conceal" shapes such as USB-flash drives, the advisory noted.

The lawsuit against the Donald J. Trump Foundation also seeks to recoup $2.8 million and ban Trump and his three eldest children from leadership roles in any other New York charity. The agreement, which must be approved by a New York state judge, would give state Attorney General Barbara Underwood the power to vet the charities that receive the foundation's remaining assets. Underwood said in a statement that the foundation had served as "little more than a checkbook to serve Mr. Trump's business and political interests," and called the agreement "an important victory for the rule of law." Alan Futerfas, a lawyer for the Trumps, responded in a statement that the lawsuit had delayed the foundation's plan to dissolve after Trump won the U.S. presidential election in November 2016.

The museum on Friday will unveil the 40-1/2-foot-long (12.3-meter) Sue, one of the world's best-known dinosaur fossils, in the giant meat-eater's new permanent exhibition space after 10 months of work moving and remounting the huge bones. Sue's bones were mounted in a way that reflects new understanding about the species acquired over the past two decades. One major change was the addition of gastralia, bones resembling an additional set of ribs spanning the belly that may have provided structural support to help the dinosaur breathe.

A federal judge knocked down a New York state law banning nunchucks that dated to the 1970s, when martial arts star Bruce Lee popularized them in his movies by whipping around the twin sticks linked by a chain. U.S. District Court Judge Pamela Chen sided with an amateur martial artist who opposed the ban, reasoning that the right to bear arms protected by the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution applies not just to firearms but also to nunchucks. The 44-year-old law that makes possession of "chuka sticks" a crime is "an unconstitutional restriction on the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment and are, therefore, void," Chen wrote in a judgment rendered on Friday in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn.

Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus on Tuesday plan to visit the New Mexico patrol station where Jakelin Caal and her father were taken on Dec. 7 to learn more about why she died the next day. Caal's death fueled criticism of President Donald Trump's immigration policies from Democrats and migrant advocates. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said it showed the dangers of her journey and the family's decision to cross the border illegally.

The family appeared in a widely circulated photograph taken by Reuters as they fled tear gas thrown by U.S. authorities during a protest at the border last month when some migrants rushed the U.S. fence. Sandra Cordero, from advocacy group Families Belong Together, which accompanied the migrants, said eight unaccompanied minors were being processed for asylum. A system dubbed "metering" limits how many can ask for asylum each day at U.S. ports of entry, leading to months-long waits in Mexico for thousands of migrants fleeing violence in Central America.

Two Chicago police officers were struck and killed by a passing commuter train on Monday while investigating a report of gunfire near railroad tracks on the city's Far South Side, police said. The two officers, Eduardo Marmolejo, 37, and Conrad Gary, 31, both assigned to the Chicago Police Department's Calumet District, were pursuing a suspect along the Metra railway line when they were killed, police said. City police Superintendent Eddie Johnson told a news conference there was no rail stop at the location where the officers were struck, and the train was probably traveling at 60 to 70 miles per hour at the time.

The incidents come amid a rise in hate crimes in the United States, with a 37 percent spike in anti-Semitic attacks, the third straight year that such attacks have increased, FBI data released last month said. "The letters appear to be similar in nature and do not convey any type of threat," Baltimore County said on its website. Two adults working in the offices of the Beth El Congregation opened an envelope and immediately complained of feeling nauseous, the county said.

A woman who climbed the Statue of Liberty's stone pedestal to protest U.S. immigration policy declared in federal court on Monday she would do it again to call attention to the plight of families separated at the border and was found guilty of trespassing. Therese Patricia Okoumou, 44, was also convicted of interfering with governmental administration and disorderly conduct before a U.S. magistrate judge in New York City. Each misdemeanor count carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail, according to Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York.

A woman who climbed the Statue of Liberty's stone pedestal to protest U.S. immigration policy declared in federal court on Monday she would do it again to call attention to the plight of families separated at the border and was found guilty of trespassing. Therese Patricia Okoumou, 44, was also convicted of interfering with governmental administration and disorderly conduct before a U.S. magistrate judge in New York City. Each misdemeanor count carries a maximum sentence of six months in jail, according to Nicholas Biase, a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in New York.

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Monday he has authorized the second round of payments from a $12 billion aid package for farmers stung by the U.S. trade war with China, but did not specify an amount. "Today I am making good on my promise to defend our Farmers & Ranchers from unjustified trade retaliation by foreign nations. The U.S. Department of Agriculture in July had authorized up to $12 billion in aid for farmers and ranchers hit by the fallout from Trump’s escalating trade war with China and the agency outlined the first round of payments.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo on Monday said legalizing marijuana for recreational use would be one of his top legislative priorities next year. The move, which would add New York to the list of 10 U.S. states and the District of Columbia that have legalized cannabis, could bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in annual tax revenue, according to a report commissioned by the governor and released last summer. Neighboring New Jersey is also weighing whether to allow recreational use of marijuana.

By 2016, it was making more rifles than Smith & Wesson, according to the latest available data from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Anderson's big seller: assault-style rifles that cost up to $2,100 and require no lubrication. Anderson says it made nearly 454,000 rifles that year, or about 57,000 more than Smith & Wesson.

The percentage of high school seniors who used e-cigarettes in the last 30 days nearly doubled to 20.9 percent from last year, results of a survey released by the National Institute on Drug Abuse showed on Monday. The increase in vaping by 10th and 12th graders was the largest year-over-year jump for any substance ever measured by the survey, which started 44 years ago.

President Donald Trump on Saturday hailed a court decision against Obamacare as "a great ruling for our country," while a U.S. government official said the decision by a Texas judge would have no immediate impact on health coverage. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, on Friday said that Obamacare, known formally as the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA), was unconstitutional based on its mandate requiring that people buy health insurance. In a decision that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court, O'Connor sided with a coalition of 20 states that argued requiring people to pay for insurance coverage is illegal because a change in tax law last year eliminated a penalty for not having health insurance.

Active in the leftist opposition Libre Party, the Pinedas believe their tormentors were loyal to conservative President Juan Orlando Hernandez. "They told me that for getting people involved in political parties they were going to fill me with lead," said Secundina Pineda, 25, one of four sisters living with their 65-year-old father and a toddler inside a tent at a migrant camp in Tijuana, Mexico.

Matthew Whitaker flew to Dallas last week to deliver his latest speech since U.S. President Donald Trump installed him as acting attorney general, an appointment embroiled in criticism and court challenges. In the aftermath of the blow-up, Whitaker's public remarks in the last five weeks have been notable for what they lacked - any hint of controversy. Whitaker's speeches, which have to largely stuck to conventional subjects such as opioid crisis, reflect the inconspicuous approach adopted by the 49-year-old lawyer since Trump named him as the nation’s top law enforcement official.

Nery Caal, 29, and his daughter Jakelin were in a group of more than 160 migrants who handed themselves in to U.S. border agents in New Mexico on Dec. 6. Jakelin developed a high fever and died hours later while in the care of U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. "Because she'd never seen a big country, she was really happy that she was going to go," she added, explaining how her husband had gone to the United States to find a way out of the "extreme poverty" that dictated their lives.

President Donald Trump said on Saturday that Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke will step down at the end of December, the latest senior official to exit Trump's high-turnover administration. An ex-congressman from Montana, Zinke has faced scrutiny over several matters. Trump gave no reason for Zinke's departure after announcing it on Twitter.

Trump did not give a reason for Zinke's departure. "Ryan has accomplished much during his tenure and I want to thank him for his service to our Nation," Trump said on Twitter. "The Trump administration will be announcing the new secretary of the Interior next week." Zinke has run the Interior Department, which oversees America’s vast public lands, since early 2017.

Elections officials across Florida say they expect former felons to flock to their offices to register to vote next month when a newly passed ballot initiative launches one of the largest enfranchisement efforts in modern U.S. history. Democrats and voting rights advocates cried foul this week when Governor-elect Ron DeSantis, a Republican and critic of the measure known as Amendment 4, said the Republican-controlled state legislature must first pass a law to implement its changes.

A federal judge in Texas on Friday ruled the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, was unconstitutional based on its mandate requiring that people buy health insurance, a decision in a case that could reach the U.S. Supreme Court. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of 20 states that a change in tax law last year eliminating a penalty for not having health insurance invalidated the entire Obamacare law. The coalition of states challenging the law was led by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel, both Republicans.

Police looking for a Colorado mother who was reported missing from her small mountain town nearly two weeks ago searched her fiance's ranch on Friday but stopped short of calling him a suspect in the case. The police chief of Woodland Park, Colorado, also publicly called on Patrick Frazee, 32, to submit to a formal interview with detectives, saying he was the last person believed to have seen or heard from his fiance, 29-year-old Kelsey Berreth. "We are asking him to sit down with our investigators since he was the last person to talk with Kelsey," Woodland Park Police Chief Miles DeYoung told reporters at an afternoon press conference.

The Supreme Court traditionally has been viewed as the court of last resort in the United States, but Trump's Justice Department increasingly has tried to enlist it in paring back or halting unfavorable rulings by lower courts on signature Trump policies, often at early stages of litigation. In another tactic, the administration has asked the justices to review disputes even before lower appeals courts have acted. Trump has appointed conservatives Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to lifetime jobs on the Supreme Court since taking office last year, cementing its 5-4 conservative majority.

WASHINGTON/TAOS, New Mexico (Reuters) - The U.S. Department of Homeland Security's internal watchdog will investigate the death of a 7-year-old Guatemalan migrant which occurred after she was detained by U.S. border agents, officials said on Friday. The Trump administration defended the treatment of the child, identified as Jakelin Caal by a Guatemalan official, and said there was no indication that she had any medical problems until several hours after she and her father were taken into U.S. custody on Dec. 6. The Guatemalan government had earlier identified the girl as Jackeline Caal.

U.S. law enforcement officials on Friday were investigating a wave of hoax emailed bomb threats demanding bitcoin payment that caused worry but no damage in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The threats led to scattered evacuations of schools and transit stations before the Federal Bureau of Investigation and other agencies dismissed them as lacking credibility. Hoax threats were received in cities including Washington, New York, Detroit, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Phoenix, Oklahoma City, Grand Rapids, Iowa, Denver, Ottawa and Calgary, Alberta.

Naif Abdulaziz M. Alfallaj, 35, who was arrested in February, faces up to 18 years in prison, the department said in a statement. Alfallaj's fingerprints turned up on documents found by the U.S. military at an al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan, the statement said. The documents included an application to an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan, it said.

When the Democrats take over the U.S. House of Representatives in three weeks, their first order of business is expected to be a wide-ranging bill about political corruption, voter disenfranchisement and cleaning up campaign finance. Aimed at sending a message, the legislation is unlikely to become law with Republicans still in control of the Senate and the White House. An outline of the bill, titled H.R. 1, shows it would require presidential candidates to disclose their tax returns, which Trump has refused to do despite decades of precedent.

California air quality regulators voted on Friday to require that transit buses have zero emissions beginning in 2029, another step by the liberal-leaning state that sets it apart from the environmental policies of the Trump administration. The California Air Resources Board voted unanimously on the proposal to ramp up the use of battery electric or fuel-cell buses until 2029, at which point all new transit buses will have to be zero-emission vehicles. The move away from diesel buses will be a boon to companies such as Chinese automaker BYD , backed by Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc and Silicon Valley startup Proterra Inc, which have bet that zero-emissions buses will eventually catch on.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials arrested more immigrants who were in the United States illegally in the fiscal year through Sept. 30, 2018, than in any year since 2014, the agency said on Friday. The 158,851 people arrested in the 2018 fiscal year by ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations division, the branch that carries out immigration arrests and deportations, represented an 11 percent increase over 2017, according to agency data. ICE arrests of immigrants with no criminal history but who are in the country illegally increased by nearly one-third compared to 2017, to reach 20,464.

Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, where 26 children and educators were killed in 2012, received a threatening phone call around 9 a.m. EST, said police Lieutenant Aaron Bahamonde. "It was a bomb threat over the phone," Bahamonde said. Bahamonde said the threat was unrelated to a Thursday incident in which hundreds of schools, businesses and buildings across the United States and Canada receive email bomb threats demanding payment in cryptocurrency.

U.S. officials have filed a lawsuit against several units of freight company YRC Worldwide Inc alleging that they systematically overcharged the federal government for services and lied to hide their misconduct, the U.S. Department of Justice said on Friday. The YRC units named in the lawsuit are YRC Freight Inc, Roadway Express Inc and Yellow Transportation Inc.

A rookie suburban Atlanta police officer was shot and killed Thursday by a man who was also killed in a shoot-out with other officers, officials said. The names of the DeKalb County police officer and the suspected gunman were not immediately available and few other details were released. "Tonight, a DeKalb County police officer died in the line of duty serving the citizens of DeKalb County," James Conroy, the DeKalb County chief of police, said in a statement on the Internet.

WELLINGTON/SYDNEY (Reuters) - Law enforcement agencies in Australia and New Zealand are investigating bomb threat emails received by some residents, cyber security officials said on Friday, after similar threats were made in the United States and Canada. "Given the widespread nature of these malicious emails, we have reason to believe this to be a scam," the Australian Cyber Security Centre said in an email to Reuters. A rash of bomb threats were emailed to hundreds of businesses, public offices and schools across the United States and Canada demanding payment in cryptocurrency but none of the threats appeared credible.

The number of U.S. inmates executed this year has reached a 25-year low as fewer death sentences are handed down and death row inmates clear their names or die of natural causes, the Death Penalty Information Center reported on Friday. Fewer than 2,500 inmates are awaiting execution as 2018 draws to an end after 25 executions, making this the third consecutive year with fewer than 30 executions, the DPIC, a non-profit organization that collects data on the death penalty in the United States, said in its annual report. "Public appetite for the death penalty has declined dramatically since the 1990s," Robert Dunham, executive director of the DPIC, said in a phone interview.

A U.S. Army Green Beret has been charged with the murder of an Afghan man during his 2010 deployment to Afghanistan, a U.S. military spokesman said on Thursday. Major Matthew Golsteyn has admitted to shooting and killing a man in Afghanistan because he suspected he was a bombmaker for the Taliban militant group, NBC News reported. Golsteyn admitted twice to the killing, once in an interview for a job at a spy agency and again during an interview with Fox News Channel, NBC News said.

Jose Jimenez, 55, was put to death by lethal injection at 9:48 p.m. EST at Florida's execution chamber in Raiford, according to Patrick Manderfield, a spokesman for the state department of corrections. Manderfield said Jimenez made no final statement. Jimenez was convicted of first-degree murder and burglary in 1994, stemming from the beating and stabbing to death Phyllis Minas, 63, two years earlier.

East Rutherford police began receiving calls at around 8:30 a.m. EST (1330 GMT) on Thursday that cash was blowing out of the bullet-resistant truck and multiple vehicles had crashed after several motorists abandoned their cars to chase the money. Videos posted on social media showed a Brinks armored truck with its hazard lights flashing on Route 3, about 10 miles (16 km) outside New York City, as people ran after bills blowing between cars and trucks on the busy roadway. A person in uniform chasing the money appeared to be the truck's driver.

A 7-year-old girl from Guatemala died of dehydration and shock hours after she was taken into U.S. Border Patrol custody, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. Early on Dec. 7, the girl started having seizures, and emergency responders measured her body temperature at 105.7 degrees, the Post said. U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not immediately respond to a request from Reuters for comment.

The two fire-safety technicians died in unexplained circumstances on Wednesday while performing preventive maintenance on a building that houses a generator for a radio transmitter outside the NSF-managed McMurdo Station, the agency said. While the science foundation, a U.S. government agency, said an official inquiry into the deaths was just getting under way, spokesman Peter West told Reuters that investigators had turned up no evidence of foul play. NSF also declined to disclose any personal information about the two workers, except to say they were employed by a Virginia-based company, PAE, which in turn was hired by the U.S. Antarctica Program's logistics contractor, Leidos, headquartered in Colorado.

Last year two federal judges - one in Philadelphia and one in Oakland, California - had blocked the government from enforcing a new guideline allowing businesses or nonprofits to obtain exemptions from the contraception policy on moral or religious grounds. The Justice Department appealed both rulings. The appeals court said, however, the injunction issued in California should not apply nationwide, but only within the five states that sued over the policy.

(Reuters) - Give me bitcoin or your life. Seriously? The people behind a rash of bomb threats made across the United States and Canada on Thursday demanded a $20,000 ransom to be paid in bitcoin. Authorities said none of the threats - emailed to hundreds of businesses, public offices and schools - appeared credible. Frankly, the perpetrators would have been better off asking for Turkish lira. Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have long been a favorite ransom tender for cyber criminals thanks to the currencies' anonymous nature. U.S. ...

Police in New Zealand are investigating email threats received by some residents that claim explosive devices were hidden in their offices, the cyber security agency CERT NZ said on Friday after similar threats were made in the United States and Canada. A rash of bomb threats were emailed to hundreds of businesses, public offices and schools across the United States and Canada demanding payment in cryptocurrency but none of the threats appeared credible. CERT NZ said the emails received by New Zealanders appeared to be very similar to those in the United States and Canada.

Underwood said her office conducted tests in New York City, Long Island, and the Syracuse and Buffalo areas on "Cra-Z-Jewelz" jewelry-making kits that were imported by LaRose and found levels up to 10 times higher than the federal limit. The kits were supplied by LaRose and sold at Walmart and Target stores.

One email targeting a St. Louis-area middle school was traced by local investigators to an internet protocol, or IP, address in Moscow, the sheriff's office in Lincoln County, Missouri said. Two weeks previously, a married couple inspired by Islamic State had killed 14 people at a California county office building in a shooting rampage.